The Disney movie Wish was not one I bothered to see when compiling my 2023 rankings, though I have seen it since. In fact, I don't believe anyone saw it. Didn't I read somewhere that its worldwide box office haul was $0?
Nevertheless, Pauls brand yogurt -- or yoghurt, as they call it here -- has seen it fit to tie the movie in with its yog(h)urt, more than a year after the movie was in cinemas. (I checked, there is no apostrophe in Pauls.) More than a year after, I should say, a relative flop by Disney's standards was in cinemas.
And if you think, "Well, maybe it's just been on the shelf all that time," I want to ask you what your impression is of the shelf life of yog(h)urt, and possibly keep my kids from attending playdates at your house.
If I were trying to find an explanation for this inexplicable thing, it takes me to the flavor (or flavour) of this yog(h)urt, and that's where this whole thing gets even funnier.
This is birthday cake flavo(u)red yog(h)urt.
That flavo(u)r in itself is not strange, though it would have been five years ago. Food manufacturers know that kids like the flavo(u)r of birthday cake and have been successful at recreating that flavo(u)r in other foods, to a degree that might surprise you if you've never tasted it.
No, it's the reason that Wish is a mascot for this flavo(u)r of yog(h)urt that's funny.
Wish is a movie about, well, wishes. Duh. But it's not abstract, like the general wishes any protagonist of an animated movie sings about in what we casually refer to as their "I want" song, such a reliable trope in musicals that you can identify it in almost any musical you see.
Rather, it's about literal wishes, the kind that a bunch of characters in this island community -- I think I am remembering that detail correctly -- make on important occasions in their lives, but were stolen away by the mean villain, preventing the wishes from coming true.
Important occasions like birthdays. Where you eat birthday cake.
So let me get this straight. Pauls thinks that if you want to imagine yourself away, while eating your afternoon snack, into a scenario where it is your own birthday party, the best way to do that is with yog(h)urt that tastes like birthday cake, and the best way to advertise that is via a movie about wishes that not many people actually liked.
I'm scratching my head.
I'll do my best to check back in with you two, three, four years down the road to see if this advertising campaign still has legs.
Because one thing I can say for sure that is that companies, even inept companies, don't so something unless it has a demonstrable benefit to them, especially if that thing costs money. (I guess it would be Disney spending the money, not Pauls, and I can't really call Disney inept.)
Maybe Wish is becoming a secret cult movie without my knowing.
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